The inside story

Mary Trump is a courageous woman. She has taken on her notorious uncle Donald who uses the Oval Office of the White House to bully and smear detractors and critics. She mounted her challenge in a book, “Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” which sold nearly a million copies on the day of publication last week. Her reason for writing the book is to warn US voters not to give Donald Trump a second term in office.

She is brave because she not only wrote and published the book but has also given repeated interviews exposing different aspects of Donald Trump’s personality and character and discussing how he was formed by his dysfunctional family. She is not only well equipped to discuss the Trump family because she is an insider but also because she has a doctorate in clinical psychology, has contributed to a book on schizophrenia and taught developmental psychology, trauma, and psychopathology. 

Robert Trump, her other uncle, attempted to block the book’s release on the basis of a 2001 non-disclosure agreement (NDA) barring her from revealing family secrets. This ended a battle over the estate of patriarch Fred Trump, who disinherited his eldest Fred Jr., Mary’s father since he refused to enter the family real estate business. In defiance of the White House, New York state courts ruled in favour of publication and of Mary’s freedom to discuss the book.

Donald Trump responded with a scornful tweet, “Mary Trump, a seldom seen niece who knows little about me, says untruthful things about my wonderful parents (who couldn’t stand her!) and me, and violated her NDA. She’s a mess! Many books have been written about me, some good, some bad. Both happily and sadly, there will be more to come!” Indeed. 

Reacting to his calling her a “mess,” Mary Trump said: “I think it’s just an attack he hurls predominately at women and honestly, I’m in very good company. I believe he’s said the same thing about [House of Representatives Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and I’m fine with that.”

Mary Trump wrote that her grandfather, Fred Sr., was a “sociopath” who both neglected and dominated his children. His Scottish wife did not serve as a buffer as she was largely absent while she was busy with charitable work. Mary’s father defied him by becoming a commercial pilot and marrying a flight attendant. Mocked and sidelined by his father and Donald, Fred Jr. sought solace in alcohol and died in 1981 at aged 42.

To win the approval of his father, Donald followed Fred Sr’s example by adopting bullying and ridicule in dealings within and outside the family. For Fred Sr., showing emotion, apologising, and admitting a wrong were not allowed. Mary Trump wrote, “My grandfather didn’t really have positive feelings for anybody except perhaps Donald.” As his record in the top US job shows, particularly as Covid-19 is ravaging the US, Donald has followed in his father’s footsteps.

She argued that Donald Trump’s career in a real-estate developer led him to rely on “twisted behaviours” such as valuing people by the amount of money they have and considering “cheating as a way of life.” For example, she revealed that Donald Trump paid someone to take on his behalf the test needed to gain admission to the Wharton business school of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Mary Trump argued that her uncle not only fits of profile of a narcissist as others have contended but also exhibits other psychological aberrations. “The fact is, Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviours so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neurophysical tests that he’ll never sit for.”

He became a braggart and a bully because, she writes, he has lived in a well-protected bubble most of his life. “Donald’s ego has been and is a fragile and inadequate barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father’s money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself.” Her book confirms other professionals’ dire diagnoses of the most analysed president the US ever had.   

She did not speak out against her uncle when he ran for office in 2016 because she felt it would not make any difference. The situation now has evolved and many people have come to see that he is not qualified to be in the White House. She told CNN, “Donald is a psychologically deeply damaged man.” She believes that he thinks his handling of US affairs of state, notably, during

Covid-19 “will work with his base.” He dares not admit his failure to handle the virus as any sign of weakness could alienate his base. 

He counts on its support although tens of thousands of fellow citizens have died while he denied the seriousness of the pandemic, delayed national efforts to contain it, and dismissed masks as a means to prevent infection. He, now, seeks to halt federal funding for testing for the virus and tracing the contacts of infected persons. Unless Washington changes course Covid-19 can only get worse because the 50 states have been forced to act separately and some Republican governors follow Trump’s lead.

While he can rely on the votes from confirmed loyalists from his “base,” which accounts for about 30-35 per cent of the electorate, 60 per cent of respondents to a recent poll said they did not find him trustworthy on the virus. His presumptive Democratic rival Joe Biden is consistently polling more than 10 points above Trump in the race for the presidency. This is, in part due, to independents who voted for Trump in key constituencies enabling him to win four years ago but will not cast ballots for him in the November election. 

Mary Trump is courageous because Trump himself, his spokespersons, media allies, and social network followers have mounted vicious verbal attacks on her, seek to rubbish her book and deny her expertise. She has received death threats. A deranged supporter might be encouraged to stalk and mount a physical attack on her. 

Explaining why she published her damning book now, she wrote, “Donald, following the lead of my grandfather and with the complicity, silence and inaction of his siblings, destroyed my father. I can’t let him destroy my country.”